the russian campaigns2

The Russian Campaigns

Hitler’s War Against Stalin

Operation Barbarossa, 1941• Hitler’s ultimate dream

– Smash USSR & carve out (G) empire– 22 June 1941: Operation Barbarossa, the

invasion of the Soviet Union– 3,000,000 German soldiers in 153 divisions

poured across the frontier into the USSR• Blitzkrieg devastates Red Army

– June-August 1941: (G) destroys 7,000 planes, 22,000 tanks, kills 2 million soldiers & captures another 2 million soldiers

– Sept 1941: Leningrad under siege, Ukraine taken, Crimea falling to (G) advance

• 1942: Germany continues to advance• Despite losses the USSR fights on

–One of the most extraordinary turnabouts in world history–“It was the Red Army which tore the heart out of the German army”

Winston ChurchillWould you say that the Soviet position in October 1941 (when Soviet records show that Stalin was seriously considering giving up) was worse than Britain’s in 1940? Explain your answer.

• Copied German tactics & invented new ones– Officers given greater freedom to act– CCCP officials banned from interfering– German style tank armies & air forces created– T34 tank; best in war (simple, durable, deadly)– Supplied all tanks & aircraft w/ radios – Radio-jamming units created; by 1943 2/3 of

German radio traffic was jammed– Order 227 (July 1942): ‘not a step back’; fight

& die, but do not retreat or else execution (thousands were executed)

The USSR Reorganizes• Winter 1941-42

– ‘General Winter’; Severe cold saved Stalin– S & generals used time to modify tactics

We can no longer tolerate commanders, commissars, and political officers, whose units leave their defenses at will. We can no longer tolerate the fact that the commanders, commissars and political officers allow several cowards to run the show at the battlefield, that the panic-mongers carry away other soldiers in their retreat and open the way to the enemy. Panic-mongers and cowards are to be exterminated at the site … From now on the iron law of discipline for every officer, soldier, political officer should be – not a single step back without order from higher command. Company, battalion, regiment and division commanders, as well as the commissars and political officers of corresponding ranks who retreat without order from above, are traitors of the Motherland. They should be treated as traitors of the Motherland. This is the call of our Motherland.

Joseph Stalin, Order #227 by the People’s Commissar of Defense of the USSR

The importance of the Russian Front• The Eastern Front

– 1941-1944: 85% of (G) armed forces committed to campaign in USSR

– Eastern Front over 1000 miles long• Vast scale & great brutality

– Germany guilty of war crimes against Russian people

– Rules of war did not apply to Eastern front– Germany regarded war as one of

extermination– Ideological war - Either Fascism or

Communism was going to survive, not both!

Soviet Resistance• Soviet citizens rallied to defense

– Stalin emerged as great leader– Stalin changed call from defending Communism

to defend ‘Mother Russia’– WWII called ‘Great Patriotic War’– Stalin allowed church a role; it raised over 150

million roubles (roughly US$28 million) • Nazis also helped Stalin

– Treated Soviet citizens brutally– Einsatzgruppen murdered 10,000s & turned

10,000s more into slave laborers– Ukrainians at first welcomed Gemany as liberators– Hitler could have had 50 divisions of motivated

Ukrainian soldiers if he wasn’t a racist• Fighting behind German lines

– USSR practiced ‘scorched earth’ policy– 700,000 ‘partisans’ operated behind (G) lines

The Soviet War Economy• 1941: German advances captured:

– 1/2 USSR’s food supply (Ukraine)– 40% electrical generation– 75% iron, coal, steel

• Citizens rebuilt industry at great cost– Dismantled, moved east, rebuilt 2500 major

industrial complexes in Urals, Siberia– 25 million workers forced to move w/ factories

• The rest of the story– Every scrap of raw material into arms

production, nothing else– Adults in USSR received no food unless working

in war industry– Citizens received 1/5 British citizen wartime

ration– Slave labor & control of Pop. by secret police– 1/2 workforce female

New industrial city of ‘Tankograd’. Guess what it produced?

Great Sacrifice, Extraordinary Results

• What the Soviet citizens achieved:– Vast quantities of a few simple, reliable

weapons that didn’t need to be carefully made (T-34 tank (over 40,000 produced), PPSh 41 sub-machine gun ‘burp gun’, Katyusha rockets ‘Stalin’s organs’)

– 1942: Surpassed Germany’s war production– 1943: 1.5 X planes, 2 X tanks as Germany– Remember, Germany was fighting Britain & the

USA too– USSR buried Germany in tsunami of men &

material

Discussion

Other reasons for Soviet victory• Hitler made many errors

– Overconfident, predicting victory by Oct ‘41, so no winter gear for troops (OUCH!)

– 100,000+ died from exposure or disease– Supplies pulled by horses, slowing use of

technology– German industry inefficient, using more raw

materials to produce fewer weapons• Britain & USA helped

– Vast amounts of food, raw materials, equipment shipped through dangerous routes

– USA supplied 500,000 vehicles, 1900 locomotives, 1/2 supply of tires & copper

– Allied bombing slowed German production• Turning points of the Eastern Front

– Soviet sacrifices, German errors, Allied help did not win war automatically

– Two major battles were turning points

The Battle of Stalingrad:Sept 1942 – Jan 1943

• Early 1942– Renewed German offensives in south aimed at

capturing USSR oil resources– 500,000 Soviet troops killed– Stalingrad key city: hold it & Germany is stopped;

lose it & all of Soviet south falls to Germany• Stalingrad

– Hand-to-hand, room-by-room fighting took away German advantage of blitzkrieg

– This was war at most barbaric level– 19 Nov 1942: Soviet counter-offensive under

Marshall Zhukov encircled Germany’s 6th army– Hitler ordered von Paulus, 6th Army to fight to

death– Soviet artillery & Katyusha rockets 24 hours/day– 31 Jan 1943 6th Army surrendered (300,000)– Proved the Wehrmacht could be defeated

The horses have already been eaten. I would eat a cat, they say its meat is very tasty. The soldiers look like corpses or lunatics, looking for something to put in their mouths. They no longer take cover from Russian shells. They haven’t the strength to run or hide.

- From the diary of German infantryman William Hoffman, December 1942

Stalingrad is hell on earth. It is Verdun, bloody Verdun, with new weapons. We attack every day. If we capture twenty meters in the morning the Russians throw us back again in the evening.- The comments of a German soldier

in a letter home, 1943

The Battle of Kursk: July–August 1943• Germany still held huge amount of USSR land• July 1943: German counter-attack

– Surprise ruined when Soviets discovered plan– USSR dug in & prepared for attack

• Greatest tank battle in history– German army was destroyed at Kursk– Vast number of T-34 tanks– Soviet planes a match for Luftwaffe, many were tank-

killers, & they outnumbered Luftwaffe 10 to 1• Russia wins war of attrition

– USSR replaced all losses from battle– Germany could not because:

• Allied bombing of factories & rail-lines• Germany refused to use women in factories

– Luftwaffe diverted to fighting bombers• Aug 1943: Red Army had 4 X tanks as Germany

Victory• Kursk was a turning point of the war

on the Eastern Front– Germany started its long, slow retreat– Jan ’44: Leningrad siege (since ’41) lifted– Aug 1944: Red Army reached Poland– April-May ’45: last great battle … Berlin!

• Hitler committed suicide in his bunkers minutes before Soviet troops reached him

Focus Task: Dissecting Victory• Write an explanation of how this

victory was achieved. Mention the contribution of:– The Soviet people– Soviet technology– Soviet industry– The Soviet air force– Soviet leaders, especially Stalin

• Now write two further paragraphs explaining how important you think:– German mistakes

&– The contribution of the USSR’s allies were

in the Soviet victory

The last word goes to Richard Overy:

In Berlin on 4 October 1941 Hitler announced to his people that the Soviet enemy was beaten and would never rise again. This turned out to be one of Hitler’s most profound misjudgments. Over the next two years the Soviet Union proved to be the graveyard of the German war effort. Few historians now dispute that the Eastern Front was the critical battleground of the Second World War … the Soviet system organized a massive war effort which blunted, and then reversed, the tide of German victory.

British historian, Professor Richard Overy, writing in 2000